Intel has officially launched the new Z97 and H97 chipsets, just in time for the Haswell refresh rollout. To be honest, the chipsets were no secret to begin with, as listings of 9-series boards started appearing a couple of weeks ago.

Intel is not making much of a fuss about Haswell refresh and the new 9-series platform. Haswell refresh is basically a clock bump, so there is really not much to talk about. However, the new chipsets bring a few new features to the table.

Speedy M.2 storage, SRT tweaks

The H97 and Z97 feature support for M.2 storage, which can deliver transfer speeds of up to 1GB/s, at least in theory. SATA Express support is on board, too.

In case you’re on a tight budget or simply need a lot of cheap, mechanical storage, the chipsets support Smart Response Technology on hybrid drives. Intel has been playing around with the idea of small, cache SSDs for years, but now SRT support has expanded to hybrids. In the past users needed a dedicated SSD and a hard drive on the side, but now a single hybrid drive is enough.

Two out of eight PCI Express lanes can be dedicated to SSDs and they can act as a boot device.

Devil’s Canyon anyone?

Haswell refresh is not much of an upgrade, but Devil’s Canyon is a bit more interesting. Broadwell won’t show up this year, at least not in the desktop space. Intel’s new chipsets support Devil’s Canyon and Broadwell parts, so they should be future proof. This is perhaps Intel’s biggest selling point. Devil’s Canyon is of course designed for the LGA1150 socket and the first Broadwell variants will use the same socket, too.

The only problem is that we will not see low-end variants of new 9-series chipsets. The Z97 and H97 are designed for high-end and mid-range rigs. Intel is expected to roll out a new high-end chipset for Haswell-E parts, but that’s about it.

Although Intel still did not officially launch the Intel Haswell Refresh CPUs and the new Z97/H97 Express chipset, Newegg.com has listed a bunch of motherboards and some of them are apparently already available.

The list includes a wide offer of motherboards based on either the H97 Express chipset or the Z97 Express chipset and most of them are from Asus, Asrock, Gigabyte and MSI. The cheapest one, the Asrock H97M Pro4 based of course on the H97 Express chipset, starts at around $82. For about $100 to $110 you can get a Z97 Express motherboard based on standard ATX form factor, such as the Asrock Z97 Pro3 and Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3.

The more expensive motherboards on the other hand go up to $400 and the most expensive one comes from Asus, the ASUS Z97-Deluxe.

Most motherboards are currently listed for pre-order, but some, including the high-end Asus Z97-Deluxe are already available and ready to ship. You can check out the full lineup over at Newegg.com.

EVGA has just released three new motherboards based on Intel’s upcoming Z97 platform. For those who came in late, the Z97 chipset is an update to the Z87 chipset and uses the same LGA1150 socket for current Haswell processors. It will be compatible with the upcoming Haswell refresh as well as Broadwell CPUs when these become available.

EVGA’s boards are available under three lines targeted at the different needs of users there is the Z97 Classified board comes in the EATX form factor, and features SLI support, mSATA and overclocking software built into the BIOS. This is jolly expensive for a motherboard and will set you back $379.99. Then there is the Z97 FTW which has a similar suite of overclocking software, supports two-way SLI, and comes with an M.2 socket instead of an mSATA slot. This board will come in at $199.99.

Finally, there is the Z97 Stinger which is for those who want to build a small form factor system. It comes in the mITX form factor, has an mSATA slot and has onboard audio provided by Creative’s Core3D quad-core audio processor. This board will also retail for $199.99.

The word on the street is that the boards will begin shipping next month after the Z97 platform officially launches.

We finally managed to figure out what new feature differentiates upcoming Intel Z97 and H97 chipsets from the current 87-series. The really new thing is a PCIe M2. storage support that promises 67-percent faster performance than with SATA Gen 3.

In an ideal world this should result in same speed that you should be getting with SATA Express. By enabling this technology Intel is targeting high end gamers and people who care about data productivity. We expect that this feature will find its way to B97 chipsets, the business version of the 97-series chipset whenever Intel releases that one. PCIe storage is supported by Intel Rapid storage technology.

Both the Z97 and H97 come with 1x2 PCIe M.2 Storage Support while the rest of the chipset looks pretty much alike the Z87 and H87 and include three way graphics support, 14 USB ports from which 6 can be USB 3.0 and RAID 0/1/5/10, six SATA 6 Gb/s and a few other tricks.

We can only guess that new boards based on Z97 will definitely be prettier than the ones with Z87, you somehow have to sell a new product that very similar to the old one.

Z97 and H97 are new chipsets that Intel plans to use for Haswell refresh parts. As one might suspect they should launch shortly before the Haswell refresh desktop parts in Q3 2013. The current plan is that the chipset launch happens in Q2 2014, so that motherboard manufacturers or what is left of them have enough time to manufacture their boards.

The new chipset support Haswell LGA1150 processors just as its predecessor based on Z87 and H87 and the Z97 is the choice for overclockers. The good news is that Intel is committing to socket 1150 and the Haswell refresh should work on a Z87 or H87 board after a simple BIOS update.

Frankly speaking we are having a hard time distinguishing the difference between Z97 and H97 compared to a Z87 and H87 chipsets. The Z97 supports overclocking, Dynamic storage accelerator and a combination of PCIe 16X or two 8X or alternatively one time 8X and two 2X PCIe connectors for three card configurations.

The Haswell refresh is definitely an evolutionary step rather than a revolution and the 9th series of chipsets reflect the same trend. We are sure that the usual suspects lead by Asus and Gigabyte will come up with some crazy expensive boards trying to get way too much money from you for a fancy feature packed high-end motherboard.